Jason Reitman on how the story for his Ghostbusters film came about

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Jason Reitman is currently prepping a new GHOSTBUSTERS project which will follow in the footsteps of the original films directed by his father Ivan Reitman, and at a recent GHOSTBUSTERS fan-event in Los Angeles (via CinemaBlend), Reitman revealed the origins of this new installment of the franchise.

We wanted to make a love letter to the original movie. And this is a story that I — again, I did not expect to be making a new Ghostbusters movie. I thought I was going to be this Indie dude who made Sundance movies. And then this character came to me. She was a 12 year old girl. I didn’t know who she was or why she popped into my head, but I saw her with a proton pack in her hand. And I wrote this story. This story began to form over many years actually. It started with a girl and all of a sudden it was a family. And eventually I knew this movie that I needed to make, that I needed to write.

The new GHOSTBUSTERS film is slated to star Mckenna Grace (CAPTAIN MARVEL), Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things), and Carrie Coon (The Leftovers). Sigourney Weaver has also said that she'll be reprising her role of Dana Barrett, even saying that Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd would be joining her. Reitman wouldn't confirm that news, but he did say that each of the original actors had read the screenplay. Even with all these potential connections to the original films, Jason Reitman said that the main focus will be on the new family. "It’s a new movie. It’s really about a new set of characters," Reitman said. "It takes place in a new place, a new location… these characters are amazing, I can't wait to introduce you to them. … They are a family. … This is what I'll say. You don't know their connection [to the original characters]. And they don't know their connection yet, either."

At the same GHOSTBUSTERS event, Jason Reitman showed off some never-before-seen footage from the original film, but his reasons for digging up this old footage is something of a mystery. "In making this movie, we found something kind of extraordinary. We went to Sony, and we said, ‘We’d really love to get back into the original dailies from 1984. Do you still have them?’ And we found them," Reitman explained. "They were in a mine in Kansas, and we shipped the boxes to Burbank. And we’ve been going through the footage for reasons I cannot tell you, but along the way we found some really cool stuff." Very curious.

GHOSTBUSTERS is set for a July 10, 2020 release.